The present invention relates to data networking and more particularly to wireless communication links.
Wireless local area networks are increasingly being used to provide network access within corporate buildings and campuses. Most of these networks are based on the IEEE 802.11 standard. With the advent of systems that are based on the 802.11a and 802.11g variants of the standard physical layer, data rates are increasing to, e.g., 54 Mbps.
One particular application that benefits especially from increased data rates is inter-building communication using wireless bridges. These are point-to-point links and have typically been implemented with simple changes in normal IEEE 802.11 configurations. Thus, these point-to-point links operate at both the media access control (MAC) layer and physical layer in a similar manner to the point-to-multipoint in-building networks.
A problem arises in that the 802.11 MAC layer relies on techniques such as contention and polling so as to accommodate the need to share access among numerous devices. The delays imposed by the required inter-device coordination represents an “overhead” when considering the overall throughput. In the inter-building point-to-point applications, additional delay is imposed by the propagation time between the bridges. Even as physical layer bandwidth capabilities improve, these delays remain and thus become primary obstacles to improved performance in point-to-point links.
What is needed are systems and methods for improving throughput of point-to-point wireless links.